Adrian, Janick and Dave's guitars and Steve's basses

sea.of.madness.1986 said:
Colin just posted this on Instagram: View attachment 42965
I honestly prefer the hot rails, the new look is good but I prefer hot rails... :(
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It literally says short-lived. It's back to rails now.

I think the plan was to use the California Series Strat instead of the Black Strat, but it was ultimately decided against it. This is Birthday Strat's current pickguard.

The most interesting thing here is that it's route is HSH, which means the production signature's routing is inaccurate.

Current setups are:
Walnut, Tobacco (Cali Series) - Rails
70's Black, Birthday - Full humbuckers
 
That is hideous looking. The Zebra pickups are too busy here and at a minimum their cream should match the white of the middle position JB Jr pickup.

Thank god it was temporary!
 
matic22 said:
The only way to pull off that setup on that guitar is if they went with a black pickguard.
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I think it would also look good as it is in the image, but if there was way more wear and tear - would make it look more 'hot rodded'. Although I think the middle pickup being white would still be weird. If the middle PU was black, that might be better

Still, like you say - interesting to know that Tobacco was HSH routed (or maybe even swimming pool route?)
 
2M2M said:
I think it would also look good as it is in the image, but if there was way more wear and tear - would make it look more 'hot rodded'. Although I think the middle pickup being white would still be weird. If the middle PU was black, that might be better

Still, like you say - interesting to know that Tobacco was HSH routed (or maybe even swimming pool route?)
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The HSH route was just for the rehearsals, it came back to hot rails again.
 
matic22 said:
It's odd to see his Signature guitar like this. I guess it's retired for good. It reminds me of his 1983 sunburst Strat.
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I don't know if 'retired for good' is necessarily accurate - I think Davey just wanted to try it out with a different pickup configuration, but decided to bring the other HSH strats instead. For all we know, this has been changed back to original spec' and is just waiting to come out on the next leg of the tour?
 
2M2M said:
I don't know if 'retired for good' is necessarily accurate - I think Davey just wanted to try it out with a different pickup configuration, but decided to bring the other HSH strats instead. For all we know, this has been changed back to original spec' and is just waiting to come out on the next leg of the tour?
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I think the Cali Series is now a de-facto Walnut backup. I think this set calls for more full-humbucker songs than TFP did (which was pure hot-rails). I assume the intent was to use Cali Series on full humbucker songs (Murders to Phantom, Rime and RTTH), while Walnut with Hot Rails would be used on everything else. I guess Davey either didn't like the look and the sound, so they brought out the black big headstock Strat instead. Full humbucker Strats weren't even present during TFP (Davey carried Walnut, Cali Series, Cream FR Classic and Dahange Charvel signature, all with Hot Rails). The only full hum guitar in the vault was the LP Axcess, which remained there.

It seems to me like Dave prefers Hot Rails, especially for everything that was recorded after Powerslave, but if there is a number of songs that suit humbuckers together in the setlist, he will go for them. 1st part of LOTB is a good example. First few songs were all Powerslave or earlier and Number and IM also worked for full Humbuckers. Because the part of the set between those 2 groups was too long, he went to FR Classic for The Wicker Man. In 2022, when the set changed, he went for Hot Rails guitars only, as there was no part of the set that would suit full humbuckers (First few songs were either dropped or placed elsewhere).
 
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That makes sense @matic22

I can see why Dave would prefer the clarity of a JB over the Hot Rails for some of the earlier stuff. Of course he also used the Hot Rails on the shows in 2005 lol (at least from the videos I've seen)
 
Infinite Dreams said:
It’s surely nothing prestigious. One of his early starter basses. I was thinking it might be a BC Rich or a Rich knockoff, though, from its headstock but that still doesn’t look quite the same.
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It's not a BC Rich. To me, it looks like something made in Japan in early 70's.
 
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